“She is sleeping,” the marquess explained to her as he stepped out and turned to hand Claudia down. “I thought it best not to disturb her. I will take her away from there tomorrow—to another destination if you wish.”
“Other than Lindsey Hall, you mean?” the duchess said. “I most certainly hope not. This is where she belongs until Eleanor and Miss Martin leave for Bath. I invited her here.”
“I have thought that perhaps I ought to leave tomorrow too,” Claudia said.
“Miss Martin.” It was the duke who spoke. “You are not planning to leave us in the manner you chose last time, it is to be hoped? It is true that Freyja credits the chagrin and guilt she felt at that time with turning her into a tolerable human being, but I could draw no such comfort from the incident—especially after I had heard that Redfield took you and your heavy valise up in his carriage because you would not take mine.”
He spoke haughtily and somewhat languidly, and his hand closed about the handle of his quizzing glass and half raised it to his eye.
The duchess laughed. “IwishI could have seen that,” she said. “Freyja was telling us about it during the drive back from Alvesley. But, come inside, both of you, and join everyone else in the drawing room. And if you are afraid, Lord Attingsborough, that you will meet disapproving frowns there, then you do not know the Bedwyn family—or their spouses. Does he, Wulfric?”
“Indeed,” the duke said, raising his eyebrows.
“I will not come in,” the marquess said. “I must return to Alvesley soon. Miss Martin, would you care to take a stroll with me first?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
She was aware of the duchess smiling warmly at them as she took the duke’s arm and turned to go back into the house with him.
Joseph was not well acquainted with the park about Lindsey Hall. He turned in the direction of the lake, where the dog had led Lizzie almost a week ago. They walked in silence, he with his hands at his back, she with her hands clasped at her waist.
They stopped when they came to the water’s edge, close to where he had shown Lizzie how to hurl pebbles so that she could hear them plop into the lake. The remains of the sunset made the water luminous. The sky stretched above, light at the horizon, darker overhead. Stars were already visible.
“It is altogether possible that my father and my sister will persuade Portia that it is not in her best interests to end her betrothal,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Though shedidsay nothing could change her mind,” he added, “and I will not compromise. Lizzie will remain a visible part of my life. But it is a terrible thing for a lady to end an engagement—especially twice. She may reconsider.”
“Yes.”
“I cannot make you any promises,” he told her.
“I do not ask for any,” she said. “Even apart from the one obstacle, there are others. There can be no promises, no future.”
He was not at all sure he agreed with her, but there was no point in raising any arguments now, was there? The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed to him that his father and Wilma between them would persuade Portia to resume her plans to marry him.
“No future,” he said softly. “Only the present. At present I am free.”
“Yes.”
When he reached out a hand to her, she set her own in it, and he laced his fingers with hers, drew her closer to his side, and strolled onward, following the bank of the lake. Up ahead he could see a forest of trees stretching down almost to the water’s edge.
They stopped when they were in the darkness of the shade provided by the trees. The grass was rather long and soft underfoot. He turned to face her, lacing the fingers of their other hands too and drawing them partway around his back so that she stood against him, touching him with her breasts, her abdomen, and her thighs. Her head was tipped back, though he could no longer see her face clearly.
“I intend more than kisses,” he said, leaning over her.
“Yes,” she said. “So do I.”
He smiled in the darkness. She sounded fierce and prim, her voice at variance with her words and the yielding warmth of her body.
“Claudia,” he murmured.
“Joseph.”
He smiled again. He felt that he had already been caressed with intimacy. She had never spoken his name before.
And then he leaned closer and touched his lips to hers.
